Friends of Dave #339: history of nepo babies
Zen and the Subtle Art of Playing it By Ear.
The intro this week is coming in hot — 268 km/h hot.
That’s how fast the bullet train I am on going from London to Paris is traveling.
As regular readers may have picked up, my wife and I planned this trip a few months ago and here we are. And frankly, from what I am seeing on my social media feeds, airports and train terminals, I think half of the eastern seaboard of the United States had the same idea.
Makes sense — the fog of COVID is finally lifting and, despite an economic slowdown, currency exchange rates are still historically attractive.
When we aren’t shackled by our offspring, I have to say we can be pretty avid, nimble travelers. My wife can spend an afternoon paying respect at old historic churches with the best of them and still have time to hit a souvenir shop near the hotel before it closes.
All it usually takes is me to be the Skipper to her Gilligan and chart the course for the three hour tour……and with me coming from a long line of meticulous planners who run far away from ambiguity, this level of co-dependence ensures that there is usually little chance that the Minnow will be lost.
It historically has made for well organized trips that have enabled us to pack in a lot of sight seeing in small period of time. Sure we leave little room for error and, as a result, it can also be pretty exhausting, but we get to see a crapload of historical churches and sh*t.
Some of you may recall that the record skipped on our operation last year, with a last-gasp-as-a-thing COVID-related hiccup on a trip to the ever warm, friendly and ever accommodating country of Germany.
The way my family rose up, banded together and responded well to the minor setback got me thinking.
As I am getting older, I am appreciating that travel and vacation time (even when it doesn’t entail sitting on a beach somewhere) offers an escape from the daily grind — the exact thing my wife and I and our perpetually overscheduled family need. While it is impossible to visit new and far removed places without ANY planning, the itinerary doesn’t need to be draconian and rigid.
In other words, you don’t need to see every freaking church and visit every freaking museum in one trip. It’s okay to be ambiguous.
So this trip, my wife and I intentionally opted to take a “play it by ear” approach (much easier as it is just the two of us without the rest of the clan). The places where we needed to book tickets to secure a time for a specific sight to see or travel, we did (ie a semi-private guided tour at the Louvre, tickets to the top of the Eiffel Tower, a dinner cruise). The rest we left pretty open. We purposely made a few days on the trip “TBD” in their entirety.
No restaurant reservations. No scheduled start or end times. No planned church stops. Nothing.
It’s been delightful.
We’ve focused so much more on just enjoying our time away, the sights we are able to see and just being disconnected as much as possible (we also did not opt to get a data roaming plan, so we are pretty much reliant on free wifi).
We noticed signs for the limited run revival of the Queen inspired play “We Will Rock You” less than a block from our hotel in London. We found 2 tickets in the 3rd row, ignored the scathing reviews — and BOOM! We are the champions. We had such a good time — we had a ball.
It’s pretty much been like that the whole trip.
We are experiencing interesting bistros and foods, shops, neighborhoods and, yes, even churches we wouldn’t have noticed if we were so hung up on checking our phones, getting from one place to another or being stuck with our reservations. We’re taking time to enjoy and experience the sights, sounds, smells of our journey.
We eat when we are hungry. We drink when we are thirsty. We rest when we are tired. We are even finding ways to connect with other travelers — like the lovely older Japanese couple who set next to us at a random bistro we stumbled upon. They were in Europe for a month celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. The waiter had taken a picture of them and we happened to be in it, so they wanted to know our story so they could tell their family when they got back.
Turns out that ambiguity in the schedule doesn’t mean that we are seeing any less. In fact, I would argue “playing it by ear” is allowing us to experience MORE.
And isn’t that the way it should ALWAYS be? Shouldn’t we be less worried about how much we pack into our daily schedules and lives and more interested in the quality of what we experience?
Friends, whether it be taking a trip or just L-I-V-I-N, perhaps we could all benefit from practicing the subtle art of playing it by ear a lot more.
Now, gotta wrap this up. As you can imagine, Paris has a crapload of churches and historical sh*t. Got things to do and see before we go...or maybe my wife and I will just enjoy the nice weather and people watch over a croissant and café au lait. Who knows?
XOXO
Dave
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